The Lies We Tell
by RepellentZeus
Summary: A twisted mind diserves company. Whether it wants it or not.


She's so beautiful. The funny thing is she doesn't even realise it. I don't mean simply skin deep, she's well aware of how she enchants with her looks. What I mean is the bit that no one else seems to see. That bit she conceals from even herself. It's buried so deep, behind a web of poison and lies, behind a bitterness and anger that'll lash out at whoever comes close, behind a nature from the shadow of the past. A nature that twists and taints so that it dilutes her beauty, like a rose that you need to pull away the thorns to see the flower underneath. All that you can see of the beauty is some obscure imagery, and that's only when her façade slips. But I see, I see what she really is.

When this began it was nothing more than a harmless crush, a blotch of lust on the horizon of my mind, another girl I would goggle at, defiling my parents book in the process. It was those rare moments that drew me in, otherwise I would probably still not see past the porcelain armour. When curiosity peeked and I started to pay attention to the man behind the curtain: I had crossed the event horizon. Now I honestly think I can't go an hour without the thought of her beauty, her perfection clawing it's way into my skull. It's like a plague that's intent on reminding me of it's own hold over me, but then again a plague doesn't really have the ego to do something like that, that would be quite silly.

Alas thou she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend who takes care of her, maybe even truly loves her, a boyfriend who she gives her heart, yet a boyfriend who can never see her as I do. She will never feel same way about me, an unsavoury fact but an honest one. Even my parents have common sense enough not to love me, so how could someone so beautiful. Despite that it doesn't stop me from sneaking into her room when the day fades and her restless mind plunges into painful slumber. To comfort her when she is at her worst, despite the fact she will never thank me. To watch over her when she is most vulnerable, despite the fact this will only hurt me. To lay beside her when she is at her most complacent, despite the fact she will never approve.

Tonight is no different. Her room is an echo of her past, something I know better than most. Butterflies reside, deceased in glass coffins across black pattered wallpaper, enclosing her in a tomb of her personality, that being a dark personality, not butterfly, that wouldn't make sense. The floor seemed to sing with the presence of the obnoxious carpet, blood red and pooling around the black bed. The steady rise of sheets foretold the presence of the cocooned girl. Sometimes when she sleeps she's as still as a corps, other times the turmoil that haunts her cannot be suppressed. I know she dreams of that day. I imagine swooping down and taking her away from that place, she'd hold my hand and we'd fly far away from her nightmares and our old lives, we'd keep going till we came to a place neither of us recognised, I would look at her and she's smiling, it feels wrong. I release her hand and she keeps on walking, until she disappears into the blue sea of the horizon. I want to follow but something stops me, an angle laced in gold light, it's hand keep's me tethered and it's telling me that she's finally free.

She should smile more..

Reality is cold. I stand above that what I can never have. Her quivering form shrouded in a unobtainable curtain. I want to stroke the shadows of her hair, dyed pitch black so that her head merged with the pillow beneath it, a few dyed strands stick out, like thorns among shadows, the colour reminds me of the stain glass windows of a church I barely remember, the design was of vines and thorns, but time has rendered the full memory of it a blur, still the colour remains.

She shifts in the darkness bringing my attention back to her. The occasional convulsion remind me of how she hurts so much that she cuts and cuts and cuts. I'm always there to clean up afterwards, to mop up all the red from the stained tiles.

I drift to her side so I can lay next to her on the pale black bed, my movement a pebble in a shallow pond compared to the maelstrom in her sleep. I embrace her form in a hug that I wish she would never leave. She's larger than me in stature but she fits snuggle against my breast. Her muscles relax to my presence and I let out a breath in reply. Her lungs steady and fall into rhythm with mine, I can imagine the tune of our heartbeats in sync, a tune felt not heard. I love this. She wriggles and roll's so she's facing me, her pristine features painted by a master craftsmen on the finest pale canvass. God she's beautiful. Our noses are practically touching and the sweet aroma of her breath is like perfume. Her lips so supple, so enticing, the bites of nerve only adding to their beauty. I can't help but experience the familiar cramps that often came hand in hand with the thought of her. At home I could work it off but here it would be disrespectful.

I pull her closer, ignoring the tension it caused me, so that in the dark of the room no one can tell where she ended and I began. I can feel her chest rise and fall against mine. My heart choruses and my palms begin to drown. I can't take my gaze of her lips. I find myself moving my head closer to hers. It's if time held it's breath as our lips touched and melded into one. I close my eyes and force my tongue into her mouth, something I had always craved her doing to me. Her breath hitches, I open my eyes and see her glaring back at me, green eyes wide like the moon blended with the type of madness that makes her so irresistible.

With my lungs emptying in a winded grunt I'm forced off, a ferocity you can only expect from her. I land sprawling on the blood red carpet, my spine in spasm from the pain that buckled from the collision. She flies from the bed like a spark rising from lit match, straddling my waist to keep me from running. The predator had found her prey. In her hand I see the flicker of silver from the pair of scissors that so often pierces her pale flesh. Will it pierce mine? I feel her fury at my throat, cold steel like her eyes. I remember in the stories that my father would tell me that the main character would close their eyes that one last time before death takes them, a trick to get the audience to think there's no hope, but they are always rescued a second later by their prince charming. Not I. I just stare right into her eyes of cold steel with all the love I can give, hoping that she can find it in herself to be my prince charming.

Her features change, slowly at first. Her rage melts away till all that's left is confusion. Then realisation sparks; it's light pushing away the inky shadows of her dream; her features settle into a sickly smugness. "Well if it isn't my guardian angel, you're lucky I didn't confuse you with one of my more desperate stalkers". Her voice is laced with condescending sarcasm. "Jadey" a naïve voice flusters from my throat. Slowly she releases me and manoeuvres herself so that she's sitting next me, leaving my body still sprawled across the red of the floor. Sitting up I look at the girl staring blindly into space, she brings her fingers up to touch her lips then sighs, a look of possible disgust on her pristine face. "Oh kitty Cat, when will you learn to stop playing with fire". She diverts her gaze to stare directly at me, leaving me a hollow. Love Hurts.

There was once a time when I would go out on family camping trips to the Sequoia National Park. I remember the immense stature of the trees, blocking out sunlight, living statements of how small everything really is. My brother would repeatedly try to climb the grandiose trunks but my parents would always stop him, he promised me that one day we would both climb to the top of one of those eminent wooden beasts, we never did of course. Other times we would set up camp in a secluded clearing, or next to a rocky alcove, where we would play tag with each other under the towering redwoods before laying motionless under the night sky broken by billions and billions of stars. My father would then tell long, meandering stories based on the constellations above, whilst we ate my mother's home made red velvet cupcakes I enjoyed so much. I love the colour red, that's why I dyed my hair such, that and a childish effort to attract more attention than I deserve. Sometimes I would spin around and around like a helicopter, I thought that if I spun fast enough I would take off, I would always get dizzy and fall over laughing before I took flight thou. I wonder if anyone has ever spun fast enough to take off? I want to see that. But that was before my brother became too time consuming and difficult for his own good, that was before my parents labelled my sins unforgivable. Those idyllic trips were probably the best days of my life.

"I thought I managed to scare you away during your our last moon lit midnight together, I guess you're too messed up to realize what's bad for you. Oh don't worry, we have that character flaw in common." She spits out her words in a vindictive, bitter tone; obviously designed to wound me. "Your not that scary. I mean you don't scare me". I blurt out defiantly, the stutter a contradiction to the words that it desiccates. "Is that true?" She raises an eyebrow, an obvious acknowledgement of my failing confidence. "Not even the scars on my arms or the poison in my mind..." She rises from where she sits and shuffles closer to me on her knees exposing the skin around her wrists to reveal the engravings she had made. "...not even the fact I take pleasure in pain, I don't care who's, it might be mine, it could be yours..." Her voice is husky now, possessing notes of sour honey, she moves even closer, but purposely stays just out of reach, taunting me. "...I'm a monster, kitty Cat, what does that make us? Beauty and the beast" I try to formulate a reply, but my mind is emptied by her words. "That movie had a happily ever after". I mentally kicked myself for sounding so innocent and desperate. "Oh how sweet, you're just like a cute little kitten. Did I ever tell you what I did to the last kitten I had kitty Cat" Her words are sweet sounding, despite the daggers hidden within them. I guess that's why my mum used to tell me to check my candy for razors on Halloween.

She stands and returns to her bed, motioning for me to sit next to her. I cautiously accept. Gingerly making my way to the side closest to the window, I sit just a few tantalising inches from her insuring me of the false hope of an easy escape in case her parent overhear our clandestine whispers, however considering how rarely her father darkened her door or the intoxicated condition that her mother tends to be in, the caution is foul grounded. "Let me indulge you. When I was seven my parents got me a cute little tabby as a present, I didn't know it was a apology at the time as no one I knew had got a divorce before. I loved that little bundle of fur, the way it warmed the foot of my bed during the long, insufferable nights, my only companion as the arguments of my parents became the anthem of my home. It seemed to be the only thing that didn't judge me with it's slanted eyes. But one day it went missing, we spent ages looking for that little fuzz ball. It wasn't until the next day I eventually found it by a river. It had broken it's leg and was cowering in agony, I could see in it's eyes that all it wanted was for the pain to stop. I didn't yield to it wishes at first, I let it's agony fill me like a song, I fed upon the pain that radiated out of it. It was a pleasure I can scarcely describe, I even made the animal scream to feed my unholy lust, my twisted fixation. And when I had finally transacted my damning sin, I gave it what it wanted, I drowned it in the river." She was taunting me I can tell, watching me intently to gauge my reactions, what she observes seems to fascinated her. Love Hurts.

At school she locks everyone out, I've studied her, watching her when all others are preoccupied with the mediocrity of 'normal' life. She hides inside a thick shell, lashing out at anyone who gets too close. Everyone with the exception of Beck. I don't know what she sees in that boy, but then again, he's obviously not my type. She says he's her lone life-boat in the brutal sea of life, keeping her from being dragged down by the sick undertow, poetic. I wish I was her life-boat. But then again she shrouds what she really is to Beck, he's just another fly in her web of lies, she never confides her darkest thoughts and desires with him. She never exposes her past so as not to scare him away.

"You know your preaching to the deaf coming here, you can't be with me, is that so hard to understand?" She breaks the moment of reflection that distilled the air. "but your not deaf, so why can't it work?" A snort of pity escapes her mouth in amusement of my little stab of defiance. "Ah yes. I'm going to go out on a whim here and say you know the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Besides I'm in love with someone else" She looks grave, framed in the blanket of moon light pushing it's way softly in through window that could be my escape from the scrutiny of her eyes. "We're more similar than you think, we both share painful pasts, we're both outcasts of a sort, we're both hated by our parents..." I begin. "We both have vagina's and are just a little unhinged" She interrupts, her annoyance colouring her words. "You don't murder kittens, or cut your own skin so you can feed on the pain as if it were some sort of drug. Your so naive kitty Cat, so innocent, so untainted. The only thing you gain by being with me is to become me, destructive, manipulative, deranged…" She pauses "A monster". Her eyes seem soft despite the hardness of her expression. "I love you". Its the only thing I know how to say, the only thing I'm sure of. Again I mentally kick myself for been so weak. The look on her face doesn't change, her vilifying stare petrified in stone. Succumbing to my pitiful demeanour she unexpectedly moves closer, lightly pecks me on the lips and pulls away before I can react, leaving only a lingering essence on my lips that melts away as quickly as the kiss. A kiss of pity, not love, it felt cold, stale and uninviting. As if it was designed to repulse me. "You don't know what love is" her voice is so suddenly assertive, I almost believe her.

"I want you gone before I fall asleep" She states lying back and slipping under her black covers. Finally defeated I nod, deflated I rise and head towards the open window. Before I step out I turn to look back and catch her still staring at me "Goodnight Jadelyn August West, sweet dreams, or at least I hope your nightmares don't come back to haunt you". I reach out of her window for the twisted branches of the burly tree outside. "Goodnight Caterina Hannah Valentine... And next time you kiss some one, remember that trying to choke them with your tongue actually takes away from the experience". I can practically hear her grimace, looking back I instead see a sliver of an sympathetic smile form in the corner of her bitten lips. It appears genuine if slightly tainted. After scaling my way down the tree, I find myself sitting at the base of the trunk, a stupid grin on my face. She may not admit it, but she has some sort of feelings for me, otherwise she wouldn't be so focused on protecting me. My grin fades when I notice a sharp stinging in my left hand, a splinter jutting from my palm. I pull it out leaving a dull pain and a trickle of velvet in it's place. Love Hurts.

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**Authors notes: Dose anyone reading remember the original version of this? I'm just wondering if any of my fans returned; if you do tell me if it's an improvement or whether I should be burned for the changes made.**


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